


illusions of the moon

by bewitchingwind



Series: illusions of the moon [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 21:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15495234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewitchingwind/pseuds/bewitchingwind
Summary: the moon has always been with him. someone else has, too. r/s set from soon after graduation until a fateful day when a boy lived, but others died.





	illusions of the moon

**Author's Note:**

> >>ILLUSIONS OF THE MOON<<
> 
> contains references to trauma, self-harm, suicide, mental illness, dysphoria, and character death, but nothing much is explicitly described. in this story, remus is mentally ill and trans.
> 
> i started writing this when i couldn't sleep one day. i recently read shoebox project again, a fic over 10 years old i have physically bound, and i always wondered what would happen after it. i never write fic. i wrote this as a way to put to rest feelings about the past, about school, about living, that sometimes haunt me. i don't actually care about this wretched book series, so apologies for any strange mistakes about worldbuilding. actually, this is really a shoebox project fic and i'm sorry..... please only read this worthless tale if you are bored and/or like to suffer.... the first half felt like it's not what i was really trying to say, so if you start to read, if you can, please read to the end.
> 
> i included four illustrations for each of the four parts, but i can't draw or write very well. it is what it is.
> 
> dedicated to a fellow marauder from a past world- Kki.

 

**

****

I

****

 

when he can't sleep, remus often shifts from one window to the next, nervously awaiting a strange premonition.

 

once more, he is here, in sirius' bleak flat, waiting for him to return from work. he is often here. it didn't start out this way, adult life. he was doing his best.

 

after some time of trying to manage, with the research position he was granted, allotted him by the order, he simply couldn't do it anymore. it was out of kindness to him, a placement between the order and trusted ministry officials into matters that needed careful attention for their cause, a kindness, a flattery. a way to be told "you can do more than you think, we believe in you", but it was too much. he simply couldn't do it anymore.

 

at first he could, carried along by the disturbing and irregular winds of the life beyond school. beyond the brief era of dangerous amateur encounters which james and sirius got into in their new order duties, a calmer adult life then sort of solidified, and remus felt he could go to work, even travel at times to attend to academic obligations, because he truly wanted to help the cause, and the world, or rather more, to help those two perhaps, by completing the necessary work behind the scenes to ensure their safety, in the thick of it. that was how he saw it, because it reflected neatly their relationship at school, as well. but at some point, he realised he was a lie.

 

away from the shack, it is more difficult than ever to transform, and he is trying the experimental potion which was only originally tested in order to help him in his duties as an Adult. that potion somewhat alters his perceptions. it keeps him at the full moon tied to this world, as Him - but everything is very strange and disjointed around that fateful time, and at other times, he is very, very tired and sometimes rather empty of all - void. already having felt such a high level of anxiety throughout school, and distress with unfamiliarity, new people and situations, and dysphoria.... these were all once kept stable, perhaps, he imagines, through the regularity of academic life, and the energy and company of that previous world. but as his motivation and belief in the present world's trustworthy rigidity waned, his mind became edged and his heart unsteady, and he is not really sure anymore where the difference between who he is, and who the wolf taking medication is, and is caught in the middle of this exquisitely drawn out negotiation between the two halves of this twisted moonlit life.

 

sometimes he has nightmares now, of when it happened to him.

 

 

 

he lives tolerably in his own flat, when one of them simply needs to get away from the other's havoc for sanity's sake, (whatever that might be supposed to be) and he is is supported by sirius - who received some graduation funds from his one decent aunt in secret via the black family vaults, as well as his earnings for his order post, but remus spends nearly all of his time inside wherever he is, trying to process his situation as an adult werewolf now, without the security and safety of school's protection and regularity. at some point, school began to feel like another world. in fact, after they left, and with all the danger there is in the world now, dark times.... he began to feel like he actually sort of died after leaving school. or, it is something like, he feels rather like something about his present world may "die", unless he works out something in time.

 

sometimes he feels like he sort of lost his friends there, like they're all dead, and the people he knows now, are actually just ghosts of them, or masks......

 

perhaps it began when, for some reason, he ended up telling his parents about he and sirius. it was rather a strange decision. he may have made it at the height of the bizarre mystery world the potion layers over him (he takes it every day in the week surrounding the moon's peak, but its effects linger always from one slow phantasmic pull to the next). the elder lupins were both very confused and sad. even though he and sirius spend so much time talking about telling james and lily, and never actually doing it, and getting so caught up in the ridiculous situation but never _truly_ fearing it perhaps, only imagining it being bad (is that so?), he ended up telling his parents, and they were just both very confused and sad. already a wolf, this is like an additional terrible deadly burden he himself personally chose, like he is throwing himself down a self-destructive path even though they tried so hard for him. the road to destruction.... ever since he heard those words, he hasn't much seen them. as there is some dark old part of him that feels, he's always been walking down this path, away from them this whole time, just none of them really knew it - except the moon.

 

he is sometimes confused about who is by his side down it. all he has in this world, is with him, but he cannot sometimes quite tell what the face of it is, when there's this huge secret he's keeping with "him". _An old friend from the last world you had powerful feelings for_ _._ Or is it, _someone he met in "this" world, who is dragging him down this vicious road._ he looks aside sometimes, when sirius is washing dishes with the bored, perfect grace he was raised with diluted even into the finest of mundane actions, or when remus thinks he has fallen asleep on the pillow before him, and yet those eyes flash back at him with dark energy deep inside.

 

sirius' behaviour is also at times, twisted and warped. but his is reckless, sometimes wild and unpredictable, at times of violent passion and feelings at high watermark always, always, but together, they are usually contained. remus sometimes wonders if it was not always like this, and he just didn't realise they were twisted round together by the same rope. he stands by the foggy, slightly moulding window and imagines pulling on that rope a little. sirius opens the flat door.

 

they have a quiet evening, the precious kind, with light alcohol and peace, which allows remus to imagine a future where they try to work out how to live like this. sirius lies exhausted on the settee, with remus' head reclined back against it, looking away from him across the carpet, feeling sirius' heavy, warm body as a presence just like it's his own, no matter where he looks. they end up talking about the usual things.

 

"you know, it's like I didn't even mean for it to end up being like a _thing_ , that we just never tell them, ever," sirius whines, like he's trying to convince himself. it was thrilling, and a little bit erotic, when it was a secret in school, but a secret in this world is just something they have to physically keep carrying with them and it's terribly heavy. they're both at a high state of nervousness these days. it's felt strange ever since they heard abou t their friends' near future plans. "we can't just not tell them when they're going to get _married_. they're too functional I can't keep up with them."

 

"they're so stable I can barely see them," remus says, like he often does, mirror words that are meant to sound like a joke but end up like a kind of prophecy. he means he can't see them on the other side of their own world, and it frightens him a little, and sirius laughs at him like it indeed was a joke, but they probably both think of how it's not so easy for them anymore either, the lingering trauma of james' parents deaths, lily's blood status and the increasing danger of their order affiliation, their simpler life and simpler heads also rendered heavy by the passage of time and darkness.

 

finally, they finish the wine and sort of start to fall asleep against the settee, not willing to do anything, a comfortable lull, where their restless blood is set at bay, under a spell, the kind that matters. "we'll tell them for sure after the wedding, and now we can relax, because the decision is made and it's just done." _so we get to not think about it tonight_. the promise sits in the air between them, and sirius waves it aside with a lazy, elegant hand and begins to fall into a peaceful snore against the back of his head. the weight makes remus feel alive.

 

*

 

it wasn't always a comfortable thought, that their important friends were going to get married. it's the kind of thing that sets sirius off, yet of course they were both sort of prepared for it, and in the end they were both a little disturbed, and then in a short time, mostly glad for them. his parents got married, once. that is, it's a thing that people do somewhere, so he has heard, in this new world of adults, even along the destructive path remus' parents watched him go off down, like seeing him off on the platform when he was 11.

 

in this world, their school friends james and lily are going to get married, and it's just a sort of real and eternal thing that he and sirius will never be able to do really, and both of them sort of think about it together without really saying much aloud, because....they can't. but the promise they made, gives them energy and keeps them knit together enough to make it to that day, when they join their precious comrades in the great garden beneath james' parents old house, which watches over them all with the firm guardianship of material things that remain.

 

it is strange to be there, but the day feels like a ceremony performed for the previous potters, like the epilogue to the funeral, and lily looks beautiful in her simple white dress, and everyone is together. remus is happy - it's a stable day - even though he remembers that funeral with a shudder, like it was the death of everything.

 

no, it's a nice day. there are several friends from school, kingsley and the prewetts, and they all talk about old things with fierce, happy eyes. remus wondered if sirius would act in his dark ways, (or whether he himself would be jealous?) but he is glad for them, they both are. sirius looks viciously, beautifully young in his black suit and shining eyes. they see peter, of course, perhaps the first time they've seen him in a while - and strangely not sure of how to talk to him, like remus has forgotten how, but it's not really about peter, he's forgotten how to do much. but peter acts much as always, and remus doesn't think much of it. he doesn't seem to have changed a lot - quiet, always kind of watching carefully with a focused, slightly hard look, watching the affairs like a gargoyle. perhaps he was always watching over them in that way. remus tells him he is glad to see him, is indeed glad to see everyone. he wanted to feel no fear this day. they stand shoulder to shoulder for the wedding photographs, and it is a precious memory. remus and sirius' sides touch firmly. peter takes the pictures.

 

remus ties up the memory of the wedding within him, where they knew they'd all live forever, trying hard to separate it from the small attack at the party inside afterward, when trickster spells are cast by nobody who in particular can be identified, and people panic a little and remus feels unbound and terrified. everyone there seems surprised, and mostly just a bit of sinister fuss was caused, yet the guests disperse anxiously. several members of the new order are present so there was never to be much of a danger, but it feels unpleasant, at a wedding. lily's eyes are fiercest then- like "this is _our_ day!". from that day on, there are more attacks everywhere.

 

*

 

they never have much of a chance to see them, for a bit after. james is often now dark-eyed and wary, and once he and everyone soon learn that lily is pregnant, the couple start to act extremely insular. remus can see it in their movements, brittle and delicate as deer's legs, like there are threats all around, even in important friends. he is himself quiet and tight and pretending to be ok, but feeling the dread of sirius' dark knitted brows beside him when james wants them gone one evening, his scowl broken by a teenage-like, indignant snarl, "hello?? it's _us_!" and it actually diffuses the frail tension, as james sits with them in a rare, brief moment in their living room, and he appears calmer, like he's remembered with a sharp jolt that he and lily aren't actually all alone in the world just those two against everyone. but remus wanted to be gone.

 

at this point, perhaps remus and sirius are basically living together, but they can't properly, as they had to tell james and lily the "truth" first. it has become rather difficult to remember the promise they made. his thoughts have become incredibly scattered, and he can't recall much, because he too now begins to be a sort of target himself. it seems that those delinquent groups who cause most of the problems of lighter gravity, composed mostly of ambitious troublemakers from around remus' own year group at school, may include snape in their number, and it was never much left to the imagination how much remus disgusted him towards the end of school. snape had found out all kinds of his secrets.

 

it is not much. merely, sometimes when fetching shopping, or simply trying to go for a walk as directed firmly by his doctors, he will get a flash of a spell at the pavement in front of him to send his eyes spinning and his paranoia hurling into spirals. with the potion's work, the smallest fright will often clutch his bones and muscles and his whole body will tense, his muscles hunch and his face contort in wary snarls at the threatened confrontation, like a wolf....like an animal. he feels the wolf wants to kill someone. he is never seriously hurt, so it's nothing like the kind of threats lily's poor type receive these days. but the dread and embarrassment, the two linked and twisted into the same wretched feeling, keep him strictly indoors now. he thinks of snape because, it may require one skilful in potions to predict such a primal side-effect, and because that one knows who he is. confined, remus feels restless, even in sirius' dear flat, once a place of safe, lazy evenings together, of safety.

 

such instances are nearly certainly being used as a kind of way to get james' attention, who as an active, useful member of the order actually does something, to make james know that _they_ know who even his most useless allies are, as much as for entertainment, but it's just small, kind of ridiculous tactics, so he puts up with it and retreats, because it's not james' fault, and it's war, and, well he kind of expected this sort of thing would happen in the future anyway. his due. it's a sort of strange, hazy dejectedness - like hmm, he can't quite decide how he feels about it. sirius hates it, and hates remus putting up with it, as if there's even a choice.

 

there's a bit of an unspoken worry that it could even be about him and sirius, since it was like snape just kind of _knew_ that remus was _this_ way too, back when the slytherin kid had to tutor him in potions as kids, somehow he just _knew_ what remus was like. and of course he doesn't want to blame james or lily, no matter what it's about _him_ really, who he is. at some point, sirius starts to gather a kind of dark anger towards james in remus' place. nowadays he notices a lot of things about sirius that seem to be a way of emulating james' life, like remus is HIS important precious object that he has to protect, he has one too you know!, and is fierce and protective and keeps remus at his flat all the time, and at first remus is mystified with anxious gratitude, and then is weighed down by how much he owes him, and regrets, and finally, a weary kind of bitter discomfort.

 

"we have our own problems too, and he doesn't even notice you know??" often sirius hisses at him like he's hissing at james, or someone from school, or someone they don't know, or himself, and remus hasn't been able to leave his cramped flat for weeks and feels like there is nothing else but this flat and the dark wasteland outside the door where Bad Things Happen To Someone Every Moment, and nothing is actually real. this isn't really the future he imagined with sirius. and james and lily are _married_ , and this was about that pair acting too insular and cowardly and dramatic, but now remus and sirius are being rather insular too and it's just too much, he's strangled.

 

gradually, he begins to remember that sirius' behaviour is in a lot of ways kind of dangerous and obsessive, who fulfills his reckless order duties with a strange bloodthirsty glow in those eyes so wretchedly over-familiar they've become almost to remus like mirrors. when all james wants to do is stop fighting and take lily and protect his small functional world somewhere safe, but sirius goes out to hunt for enemies and brawl for the sake of it not for what he is trying to protect.... what's important.... what is....?

 

well they're both really high-strung, and remus in his darkest, emptiest days feels like he personally is the one causing trouble for everyone, perhaps in the whole world, and it's making things worse, and maybe they should have some time apart. he doesn't really mean it like he perhaps says it, just kind of "having a break" which he has heard of before, just a little time to breathe their own goddamned separate air and think about a lot of things, he's having trouble thinking. he's started to feel confused many days, and you look at me with such a wild look sirius, it feels like you're the one who's after me. he's not quite sure of what he says and what he thinks, something like _right now you're the one causing me the most problems, really_ and he doesn't want to say, _maybe we shouldn't move in together at all, then we wouldn't have to tell them_ because he doesn't want to hear _so you just don't want to be with me at all?_ back because when he hears that, he knows that sirius hates him. doesn't he want him gone entirely from this world? does he hate sirius back? does he love him? and anyway it would just make things easier, for the present.

 

sirius watches his thoughts process with narrowed, scornful eyes like he knows what remus is thinking and defies every word, and then gets kind of cold and lost like a high wind. the sort of hurt and anger of an abandoned puppy which he can never hide or control in the first moment, the moment of begging leave to be like a child, still stuck in the previous world that remus cannot any more access. the shutters try to come down over his eyes and a bark of a laugh, "fine" and "of course" but sirius grips him by the shoulders like, _don't you realise how important we are?? this is??_ and he doesn't, he can't feel anything now, a time when the truth is freezing cold, but in the end, still rather truthful. remus always has moments of fell clarity spit out of him like this, when he's truly exhausted, and it's being taken advantage of. sirius just howls "are you serious??? after all this time?" and still holds him painfully until he looks up at that horrible face with a shudder, and remus feels the situation hurtling away almost into danger, but he has no power. in that precise moment of witnessing his dangerous and wild hurt snarl, remus remembers. it's like how dark and bleak he would act in the tower room, after receiving cruel correspondence from his awful family or some such event, that brutal, vicious laughter and hollow mirth calling powers from other worlds, so when sirius asks him that like it's a noose, remus is frightened, and he flinches away. the shutters close totally flat, and that cold laugh with a bit of a waver in it, echoes around remus as he leaves him alone, to go off who knows where, and soon after remus returns safely to this own flat to remain in the dark pit of hell.

 

that summer is hot, and remus kind of avoids him for a good while, throwing up his correspondence with james and lily and anyone in the process, which lets a quiet reprieve cover him for a time. he feels rather empty, but it is at least better when he can hear nothing. when you can hear that, you can at least haul your wretched corpse around to go to the toilet, and make a bowl of cereal one day, and lie thinking bleakly but usefully in precious darkness on your own bed, the next. nothing much has really changed. he feels that he is tied to sirius for life - no matter where either of them are. some days he thinks, even if he tried to truly escape, sirius would probably follow him to the next world and reap his soul. other days he thinks he can hear the voices of two mischievious school children, laughing in carefree lilts at he of the future, who has lost something important that he used to have.

 

he avoids him, but at first occasionally he attempts to check up on him, because he truly has no other responsibility in this world. and sirius' behaviour frightens him but it's familiar, doing strange dangerous things. remus tries to retain that responsibility for him, because also there is no-one else anywhere to look out for him right now and stop him, or be his audience, and anyway, they're both aware they still need eachother. it's just a dance.

 

the fool takes high risk missions since the order are kind of low on non-injured employees at any single given time, or tries to take them anyway, probably drinking a great deal, spending dark company with only himself. at first he is out a lot, and sometimes remus knows he is at james' (what does he say to him? about them....?) and just shuts himself up like a hermit eventually. remus knows him exquisitely well, at this point. it's all in his dark familiar eyes. being truly hurt, wanting to attract his attention and frighten him like everything he does is either for remus' benefit or injury, and through weeks of bitter lonely looks and arguments it's mostly like, "we're not together, you have no way to stop me, it's none of your business, right? right?" and the "right?" is like an angel's trumpet call, desperate for remus' judgement. and they enact this strange negotiation, until remus feels truly cold about it, like "do as you wish then" and they genuinely spend some time apart.

 

it gets a little easier to be alive, now that he is without him. he can't sleep for nightmares, but he manages to do a little work at home comparing texts and reports for the order, which could help reduce their dangerous world. but he wants to be alive with him.

 

// _it gets a little easier to be alive, now that he is without him. sirius does less risky stuff, like taunting spy work about the other blacks that only HE can do, and more regular mundane tasks with prongs. they all know he and remus have "fallen out" and he lets it hang between them all like a resentful, desperate plea. he ends up seeing a lot of james and lily together because of that. there is remarkably less of the infatuated nonsense that used to mess with him, goad him, and he just watches them and thinks about many things. at times remus does feel like a hideous betrayer, someone who has been trying to harm him from the start. at other times he looks at lily who's looking at her husband, and he sees remus. lily's pregnancy is beginning to show a little, now. they're even more wary and suspicious as they move, like wild things, but in their eyes is such a gleam of triumph about it that sirius wonders how it feels. he wants to know. he never wants to. he thinks about many things. he wants to be alive with him._ (when remus sees her, he feels how that could be him, thought it _can't ever_ , and feels like he's not in his own body. what he really feels is, he misses sirius with his whole heart, with every vein and tooth.)//

 

 

****

II

****

 

over that time, everyone gets a little smaller and warier. there are gradually increasing violent attacks and raids out there in the Real World, but it's like everyone, even the dark atmosphere of reality, is waiting for something important to happen that will change everything. for something terrible and big to occur. for a tiny being to be born. sometimes, remus kind of forgets even that james, lily, perhaps even sirius ever existed, when he has not really eaten anything for days and falls asleep, crying without feeling sad, only emptily curious of his own bodily processes and fluids, at other times he feels that even he is waiting with all his breath held like james and lily are, for something in lily's body, held tiny and close.

 

when he was in school, it was not exactly difficult to be reminded that his body was different, to his closest friends. and their collective way of dealing with it was to make light-hearted, determined jokes about it, even crass ones, until finally it simply became a worn fact, the kind that you never think about anymore even when you say it. he'd never known, had never imagined, a secret being held that way. _remus and his diary and his girl parts_ , what was unpleasant and deadly back when his whole life was a hundred different secrets in one tiny eleven year old body, became a fearful joke for about a week, and then was just a mirror of a joke, reflecting a myriad different vows. _we'll keep you_ , it was like. they were the ones who saved him, after all. remus owed them his whole life from that point on. in the end, they were his perfect secret keeper.

 

in that past world, that was the simplicity of it. perhaps his body's truth worked so well for their little brotherhood because it _was_ a secret, just another of theirs, the map, their animal forms, remus' body. what might be accidentally seen at the shack and what might accidentally be seen in the boys' bathroom, started out the same for remus and ended that way, too - because it was their world. children can process things that way and turn them into exciting mysteries, allegiances, a connection. as an adult, what it means is that sometimes he looks at lily's changing body, and he still thinks, _i have that body_ , and it twists him. the fears of this adult world are different - they're not a far away danger to hide from _stay secret stay safe_ , they're in him.

 

he hears from james when the baby is born, the first time he's seen any of them at all in about 6 weeks - no, 2 months - and feels a kind of animal-like yearning to be at their side, to see. _someone else_ might be there, too. remus manages to sleep a little that day, and dress in slow, nervous movements over 40 minutes, and floos to james' parents house, where they're still staying, at the moment. it's evening and no-one has to look at the garden, memory of uncertain chaos. for a few hours they are united in this tiny family group, like the whole pack's turned out for the important event, just the four of them for now. sirius is there and fixes him with a plain, calm stare. remus takes in a thousand things, like he probably hasn't eaten more than like 2 full meals for the last week either, but they look at each other measuredly and both kneel around the young small family for a moment, like nothing has happened, nothing has changed ever, apart from this one new form. it's a tiny child. a small body, a small creature. remus feels many things when he looks at it, but none of them have a name. he wants to protect it.

 

they have a kind of small party, around the tiny baby, the atmosphere horribly adult, but in the way where they feel like they could be kids again for the first time since they were, like they're all just overgrown children who've managed to accomplish something bizarre and grown-up and don't really know what to do with it, but they'll make do. remus feels ok - he feels glad to be there. lily is very calm. she holds baby harry with the firmest hands remus has ever seen. he knows there's something that immeasurably separates their bodies, then. he chances to meet sirius alone in the garden, when compared to the sleeping, tiny growing baby, the garden and what happened last time no longer feel as much of a believable threat, and sirius is kind of waiting for him leaning a little against one wall, all nervous and reasonable energy.

 

he says, "hey," and remus looks at him carefully. he doesn't really say anything else, just lets the curtain of the atmosphere and reality hang around them and they think the same things. sirius holds his face very carefully, and looks at him, and remus thinks, _once, you were born_ and _once, we were that small and precious and still are_ and sirius' dark endless eyes just close and he kisses him firmly and with all the feeling of the time they spent apart, returned and completed in one picture.

 

remus tells him, "i didn't want to leave you," and sirius responds, "i know."

"we didn't, really," and it's true. it doesn't really matter which of them says either thing. the end, the beginning.

"we're still here for now - alive."

 

james and lily make sirius harry's godfather that day, and it's a joke like, is he really responsible enough? and like, well that's why it's only something that doesn't really mean much, and he probably won't have any children anyway, who would make such a mistake but at the same time, it's a mysterious vow that they all seem to feel _does_ means something important in some way. sirius is sheepish, but picks up the baby a little more confidently now, nervous and interested and a bit silly. remus looks at him with that slightly irresponsible, pleased face, and loves him deeply.

 

they stay at sirius' flat often of the time over the next many months, sharing meals and a world and a space with a new feeling. they look after eachother again and lie on their backs drinking old wine and doing pretty much nothing, laughing a little rudely and affectionately at how their friends will be having much more sleepless nights than even them, looking after a crying strange creature they made so they have to keep it now. remus still can't work, because going outside feels like he's going to die, but he imagines a world where one day, he may be able to again. they talk a lot, even if they don't do anything about anything still, about how they could tell them now, or maybe never, perhaps it doesn't matter. perhaps they could adopt a puppy one day and tell them they made it. it just doesn't really matter. without talking about the future, they both want to proceed.

 

"this is pretty weird, and i don't really get it, but to me, they're kind of the same creature," james says one day to him in the potters' kitchen, in his broad, kind of honest way, where he's a little embarrassed but also pretty sure of what he says at the same time, "like someone called lily and this one called harry are both just, they represent one thing, the one most important thing, what's real." sirius says nothing and remus doesn't, but when he looks at the mother and child dozing on the settee, he thinks he kind of gets it, maybe. _because they originated from one body?_ he thinks wryly, even darkly, hating that that is supposed to mean something in this world, wondering what it means. but he realises calmly that it means they're becoming a separate unit now, in a way, from them, from everyone else, forever, now that they have each other and the picture for them is complete. perhaps in this world, you are only really granted one treasure. you have to keep it safe with everything you have. he doesn't glance at sirius, but he feels him there with the sides of his eyes, and he hopes that he gets it too.

 

then there are changes. james is a lot less reckless and a lot more conscientious, it could maybe be put, in that while lily takes care of their child at home, he talks about the kind of world harry could live in, because he'll grow up one day - so it's said, though remus can't imagine that, the passing of such time. it's not really _responsible_ or _mature_ , because could james be so anyway, but really, it probably is. he's become well respected by the older witches and wizards who are still alive, and he seems to understand why his own parents were involved despite the dangers, for his sake.

 

the "cause" never really meant something when it was just a thrilling job after graduation, a continuation of their wild marauder antics for the good old fight, the brotherhood of lost boys, but now it represents a protection of their world against a Dark Lord, for their children, for safety, for people like lily, for everyone. james seems to see a different kind of world around him to the one remus can see. well, it was always that way, he was always able to pull things together, to see what _this_ means and what _that_ means, and to choose the right one firmly.

 

the order as a whole seems to have achieved a lot. but there is a kind of turning point. several of their group are killed, young people - their lives are ended, forever, sent into another world. and they didn't even want to die. order members involved with muggleborns are the first to be specifically targeted. rather than the kind of scornful annoyances that were sent after remus at first, then just abuse and rude threats, and suddenly, they are all at once in rather a lot of danger. because of his work lately, james is advised to stay at home and wait while the order restructures, but he can't, there are others, other young members with young children, yet one day, he realises he must. remus witnesses it happen over a very short time.

 

they are both summoned to a busy, wild scuffle of an emptying house, as james and lily are together packing while harry cries in confusion from his room, james' childhood room, the sound muffled behind a hastily drawn door. remus felt this approaching, a strange foreboding, but sirius has the insatiable nerve to act shocked and upset. they hear, "we have to go, we're going into hiding, just for a time. we've heard a rumour, we're the biggest target of the order now, but it's different now that we have harry, we have to stay alive now," and james tells them many things as he bustles with a pale, haggard face, and sirius is finally cowed into helping, then sitting on the floor watching and comforting a rescued harry, with a kind of wide-eyed nervousness, atop a tightly veiled dark anger, at something, unknown. remus talks with lily in low tones, and they all manage to calm down and talk about a great many things, like it'll be the last time for a while. james will go first and set up spells, then arrange various things with their trusted friends within the organisation, until they relocate together in a new safe house.

 

james makes sirius secret keeper, the one to keep this memory forever, of them all joyous and peaceful since harry was born. it means a huge amount, many unsaid things. sirius stares hard at them with dark beady fierce eyes, muttering, "like a faithful dog waiting for your return?" his eyes are not with his laugh, "i might not wait forever. you shouldn't leave me behind like this." remus is tense, for everyone, but sirius ends decides to end it, "i'll keep it to the death of us."

 

james and lily look carefully at remus, and he feels uncomfortable. they want to make him joint keeper if he will be, but remus refuses, he knows he's too unstable for such a position, he doesn't want the pressure... realistically, he most wants sirius to have this, something to hold, a memory, a meaning... something to process and hang fiercely onto, even if it's mostly with the power of anger. the couple promise not to drift too far, they will write if they can, even visit briefly, once it's safer.

 

after james is gone, there is a fearful feeling that they all have, an unease, for they stay with lily when they can, but they are not sure where the danger really lies. there's something strange approaching. they discuss many things with her, and remus knows sirius wants to tell her _now_ , he has to, if he's secret keeper, he must tell them this important thing that had to be a secret. remus doesn't want to give them strange new information or shock them, it doesn't feel as important now. "i feel like lily knows," he says, for they are so often with her, always together, and with the nervous atmosphere of purpose remus finds it impossible to keep track of what he manages to hide and what he manages to try to delicately make obvious, which can't be worth much, and sometimes he just cries on sirius' shoulder with strange emotion.

 

but sirius cannot process all his secrets quietly, they'll spill noisily, indelicately - he cannot forget it, what it means, that they're all in such danger, that he is the master of their hiding place, he wants to fight by their side, not keep it, _be_ there.

 

remus cannot keep a hold of him. that month, the moon approaches fervently. his thoughts are jumbled, and he cannot hold them himself. strange things happen. strange voices, strange shadows, outside the windows of his flat, sometimes seeming like it is even inside, so that he is not sure where the danger began. he feels everything running away like sand. the moon strains eagerly to watch.

 

// _sirius calls james to his flat, at a time when remus is off sleeping on his own somewhere or hell knows what, and a few days before the day they're set to leave together forever to their new home. godric's hollow. a safe place in a safe county, where they may never return from again - he, lily and harry, their precious family. sirius watches his own dark feelings from a faraway place. james floos to him all in a flurry, like "I don't have time for this" and sirius wants to beg,_ take us with you _! take remus at least, somewhere safe, he's losing it, I'm losing him. but he doesn't know what to say, because james is running away from him for the very last time. he says, "I don't want to be your secret keeper if it's like this"_ _or something, "like you're never coming back, abandoning us, when lily never used to even be one of us" and he doesn't really mean it, he just wants him to listen, how he's caused this trouble by running around out there for the greater good while lily stayed at home, or to say something real, how desperate he is to protect them, it's just they're in this together aren't they, it's just...._ _he says a lot of things and james doesn't listen, so he hits him, just wanting his goddamn attention for one moment. he thought he would be allowed to apologise right after, because james would._

 

 _but_ _james just explodes, "you don't know! you don't have anything like this, you just Don't. Know. it's more than you, it's everything you are, all there is. this is worth my life, so it's not worth anything less," in the way he has really always done things, about heroics, wanting to protect lily and_ _a wailing helpless creature_ _with everything, take them somewhere safe and fight to the end in a last stand, like they're just going there to set the stage_ _, for something inevitable._ _he doesn't want to_ _scream at him_ _that he has a feeling of doom, like it's not going to be enough anyway, which is impossible not to feel in this world just a little, if you share it with_ _remus. which you're not really supposed to say if you're a secret_ _keeper, like a lot of other things he can't say even to james, and in that moment, listening to james talk like that, about how he_ _, sirius,_ _basically has nothing, he kind of truly hates him. he says, "it could be enough if you just actuall_ _y_ _relied on us!" but to him,_ us _means nothing because he sees_ _sirius_ _as just him, just sirius the faithful dog with no other purpose but to perform a task for them, the one perfect family, and he feels suddenly that he wants to shock him, just a little, into realising there's a hell of a lot of things that he doesn't know, that not everyone envies his little family unit, that there's more ways of fighting than getting married, that there's another kind of hope,_ _another light,_ _for him._

 

 _james keeps telling him, pleading and firm like a father, "i know all about who you are, but_ this _is something that you can't ever know," and sirius feels like maybe it's true, or maybe it's_ not _._

 

 _"i've been with remus since 7th year," he says darkly and calmly, like a trump card, hating himself for keeping it like this, but enjoying it immensely and hating that, too. james stops short, disbelieving, not like a shock but like a joke, a dark silly joke. sirius laughs himself, feeling that berserk joy and something even like a blood frenzy, when he would cause the most havoc at school than anyone, annoy and horrify and disgust everyone around, when esteem and repulsion kind of seemed like the same thing, in the end. james looks empty of feeling, too much of his idiotic head taken up by feelings of his own crucial life and world, and doesn't quite process it, but he is disturbe d, sirius sees, or feels that he is disturbed. the fear is greater than the anger, for one moment that propels his pleading words, spun into violence. "you've decided lily is the most important person in the world, because she is to_ you _, but in my world, remus is all, and i still wanted to be a part of yours too! i_ did _, but you cut us out." he's always eloquent at times like this, just like - his own parents. james doesn't know how_ parents _can mean something vicious, cruel, can make deadly mistakes even when they don't mean to , and when they do . james looks like he doesn't even believe him._

 

 _"you think you're the only ones who suffer, but you don't know how much remus has been targeted to o , but he didn't want to even tell you about any of this all this time, anything, so as not to be a burden, because he was worried about what you would think! do you know what it's like to live like us? so what do you think?" he spits the words hard, but his expression grows into a scornful leer as james' own face changes, thinks about it for the first time. "you're thinking about it, right? we've done everything you're thinking of - more. this is us.... we're just foul, " the bark of a laugh cuts away his sore throat, bitter eyes. "yeah we can't have some child, but if you didn't want to have another thing to lose, you didn't have to make it. we can't choose anyone but each other. you've made all your worries so that you have your own special world, where things go as they're meant to, get the girl, the most precious family in the world, the only one - but I would never have run off with remus somewhere, even though I love him more than goddamn_ anything _, because I wanted us to be in the same world as you. but you know_ nothing _, just - if it has to be this way, then I choose him. we could have used your help too all this time, we could have helped you avoid this , but you think you're the master of it, the only ones worth killing."_

 

_he pauses to breathe raggedly and viciously, half truly upset, more than just angry, now, but james' eyes have narrowed because sirius probably said something kind of sinister, but he is sinister, they're not allowed to be heroes, and then just turn cowardly and hide like rats when they've done their work and clocked out , they always have to figh t even when they're supposed to be safe at home 'cause no-one's after them. maybe it was always him and remus, really, ever since james first saw a beautiful red-head and became a prat. ever since sirius became a dog, always at least a bit of it remaining in him, and looked into remus' eye and saw the moon reflected there and knew him. he wants to leave james' with some grand, stupid statement for a few days, and also say something that's truly real, so what he says is, "we've been running our own game all this time, our own world, just us" - a world you can't understand. I want you to. I want you to never to. he wants to knock him down, or be knocked down. in the end, he just leaves or something, he goes back to his flat and knows he probably did something stupid because he shuts the grate so that remus can't get to him, and decides he doesn't care if james goes off to his stupid house and they never see him again.//_

 

 

****

III

****

 

 

remus is horrified at the chaos that can be enacted in one single evening, and when he finds sirius lying on the floor of his kitchen the next afternoon with his face and arms torn from scratches, and his breath short like he was transformed for a long time getting into trouble in the woods beyond his flat, or out on his motorbike being dangerous, or something else, something painful and private, he fears that he has been driven wild again even after he moodily tells the whole story, and will grow and stay that way. sirius stares long and hard at him from the floor, his eyes with a brutal fire in them but which calms and sways under remus' gaze until he pulls him to the ground with him, and just lays on his knees and shudders violently. once reflecting on the tale, remus feels a bleak fear that everything is over, but carefully arranges the pieces the best he can, concluding that since sirius is a little regretful and embarrassed, perhaps he has done no real harm, though they cannot yet tell.

 

they talk about all kinds of topics through their hoarse voices, with alcohol and sirius not moving from his lap and fixing him with a harshly bright stare the whole time that he can't bear to look back at, about what they're even doing, in this world, alive. they talk about his family - usually a forbidden topic. now that he has firmly sided with the order, sirius cannot leave home much either, except to apparate directly to the organisation's always shifting headquarters. ashamed, disturbed, horrified about them, and the trouble they cause, but more than just about them, about life, and death, and not understanding any of it, and remus is so, so fragile - he says this with a slightly inebriated tone, and remus wants to laugh at him, but his hand is curled towards his cheek, and never quite reaches it, and there's just the same endless stare with shadows in it. "maybe we should just run, should just abandon all," he whispers, and "i don't feel scared. it doesn't quite feel like being alive or being dead makes all that much difference," and remus doesn't say anything back because it's true. he thinks of everything in his own body that he's tried to escape, ever since that fateful time in childhood that wrecked everything - even back to the very beginning - and he doesn't know why any two people could want to create a baby. he can't remember anything of school now, but he remembers one feeling at the very beginning, sure as anything - that he didn't want to be born.

 

yet sirius drinks a lot that night, and remus is feeling the pull of the Moon around the potion, a hazy grip of pale fingers around his wrists, and throat, and its melodious pale laugh that's not his own and fills him with a queer dread like, _You're getting closer to the truth of the matter, and it's not for the best._ sleepless, he wonders if there's anything that can be done to save this world, if he could try one last time to have a bit of power, and into a bit of a real panic, he leaves him and seeks out lily in the morning in her house of white walls, hazy protective spells and rows of cardboard boxes, but she is not there, and he feels like everyone is already dead.

 

she turns up half an hour later finding him nerves and bones on the carpet floor, lain against one side of the wall, herself all reasonable and practical life and action. she picks him up firmly, then nervously lets him go, and he realises she must have heard everything by now, too. in a scare, in tears, he begins to talk to her, and she makes them tea, like remus' mother - or someone - used to do - somewhere, when things were toughest. only on those days.

 

she hears about how unstable sirius is, but that it might be ok, but his wildness frightens him, but they didn't mean to keep this secret. they talk a little, as much as he can, about 7th year, their feelings. he only knows because he found some information about the beginning, letters and diaries, in a shoebox he found. he doesn't actually feel like he remembers school happening himself. he at least recognises that she isn't very disturbed, only pragmatically trying to restore a situation that was surprising to her, because there is no choice, it's done.

 

"I always just kind of knew you had a really crucial bond," but she admits she didn't really know, wasn't really thinking of anyone but herself, regrets that selfishness, is confused and pale but wanting to work out a lot of things and have everything settle as best for everybody. she doesn't just want harry and james and herself alone to be safe, but them, too. she is probably the only capable one of any of them. "and it was me who bid you look after him, after all." remus smiles down at his blue and white teacup, hand steadier, as she speaks kindly of the time around the funeral. she begins talking of a lot, of how james feels about things, wanting remus to believe her that it will be alright, and he tries. she is a persuasive person. of how "james has a lot of complicated wild feelings about being a parent, and life and death and fighting, and what people should and shouldn't do, and moral action, because of the wretched death eaters, but he means well, for everyone."

 

"I've been thinking all this time, lily, for a long time, of how to best tell you. I thought of it carefully and reasonably, and he just wrecked it, or... you know how he gets, he wants to use dangerous language, just feeling like it's a game, a fight, but ugh.... this was the worst time for this, and that behaviour really sets james on edge these days, because he's had to change, but sirius is still catching up," he puts it, not quite feeling that it's quite right, but the words have begun to roll out under her maternal guardianship, and it is what it is. perhaps he was never truly worried about it - but he wanted them to see he and sirius as the same as them, no less, no more, and yet this way they chose, james or lily never even had the chance, so they _never_ saw them that way. lily seems to watch the process of his thoughts, and draws a careful, kind and slightly uncertain breath.

 

"what's the problem is that - well, both of you - kept this all this time, like just to use it to shock him or prove something to him.... _I_ don't think that," she hurriedly additions, but she seems pensieve and sad, like she still doesn't quite get it all the same. "like you didn't trust him, when we truly, truly trust sirius enough to, well, make him what we've made him. I think it'll blow over, but there just isn't enough time. I don't think he'll want to see him before we go. we go tonight."

 

"that's probably for the best," remus admits with a sigh, for he doesn't know what he would say to james himself now, how to repair the damage that was created by a confrontation rather new and about something rather different, about james and sirius really, when they could have just calmly admitted the original thing in a polite, honest fashion. they're all rather confused, and alert, and thinking about a lot, but, at least it's been revealed. the final secret - although, there is one more. he doesn't know where lily is going, but it feels right, like after this, they deserve to have something of their own, every couple, every person, needs to perhaps have that, and that's why these situations are created. james and sirius were always their own force of nature, but even so, there were always things that set them apart, irrevocably, and they both knew it - surely. there are things about james that make his life difficult, too.

 

"he does feel unpleasant about it, but it's because it was a secret, or, a secret turned into a weapon. at the moment, he can't help it, every 'weapon' is a threat. it's just too hard to take in these times. I'm so sorry, remus," she finishes, meaning probably a lot of things, and remus feels a little pink around the cheek, and so hides it with a mouthful of tea. secrets, weapons - sometimes it's difficult to work out who holds the weapon, when it's a truly deadly secret. "perhaps we should have asked again if you would be our secret keeper. we always talk about it." she adds wryly, with twinkling green eyes, "you're clearly a pretty sharp keeper of secrets." he sits there with lily and thinks about those things. he feels like they may be thinking about rather different things, but there is a companionship that brings back the kind of atmosphere of school, even if he can't quite access it any more.

 

what she says grinning and distant, is "i remember all sorts of things now," and he tries to chase after her thoughts, her merry eyes full of comfortable recollection of a more peaceful and foolish time, a transition of moments from the beginning to now, in one order, as it should be. she is the same person she was then, only older. he watches her desperately for a sign of how to do it, why she can, and can only follow her eyes, not what they can see. "like when I kissed you on the stairs under that mistletoe and it was half to annoy sirius as well as james, since he acted a lot like you were kind of like his property or something and I just didn't get it. when I truly just liked you, and the two of us shared a lot, even back then..." he thinks, too, of how she is a muggleborn and he is a half blood, and of something else they share, a lineation of muscle, of natural purpose.

 

he remembers ever so faintly about the exact moment when they learnt about his body, exactly as it was written in a diary from 1st year, how he has been thinking of the whole issue recently.. after all, he didn't have to perform this current service of a secret keeper, because he's remus, the eternal secret keeper.

 

with his new perspective, he thinks about that suddenly very differently. in the end, I was the secret, you held them. you were the ones who held the key. _of my heart_ , he thinks under that, but it feels kind of ridiculous, so he decides he has erased that thought. but when he thinks steadily of sirius' shadowed face the evening before, with regrets and hopes and death and futures in it, he does think about him, you held my secrets, you held my body. lily never learnt that he was a wolf, though she being fearsomely competant and possessing the fiery nerves and emotional maturity that few in the world ever have claim to, clearly worked it out about his body. perhaps it was indeed in the precise moment they had to kiss under the mistletoe in 6th year or whenever, when she was up close to his face and throat and scars, she may have worked out a lot in that moment, and she laughed and kissed him gently anyway.

 

when he looks at her, the tears drawn to his eyes at the painful, vapid feeling of another "memory" that he has truly lost, he recalls that she is a mother. she looks at him in worry and alarm, softening into calm. she will be good at it, he thinks. she is already good at it.

 

 

"I think about a lot of things now that I'm like this," she says in the same steady gaze. "I was at my parents' house just now you know, one last time to see them, though it was a risk. I had to. I think of a lot of things now." remus waits for something important to be said, feeling it approach, but it is not what he expects. "....remus, the truth is that we talked about changing our secret keeper last night. I.... it was james, really. it's.... I feel like if sirius hadn't had you all this time, things would be different, I know you feel like it's _him_ looking after _you_ , but I sometimes wonder. I feel like you might be the only tenuous link keeping him to this world. it scares me. and he just, james doesn't feel like he can take any liability right now, in his worried moments, he was angry and confused and he doesn't feel like he can trust him, just at this present moment that's all, not because of being with you, but because he's so wild and unstable and james just _didn't know him_ , all this time, this huge important enormous thing."

 

remus takes it in and thinks about it in frank consideration, feeling empty of anything much but weariness and tea. "it might be for the best," he finally says delicately, heavily. "I don't feel like we're really the most honest people at the moment. the most trustworthy. it's all about what you value most, isn't it. sometimes it feels like there has to be just one thing in the world that's yours? it's all you have, and it makes you unsure, every day, that every single other person has the power to take it away from you, and.... you're at their mercy." he doesn't want anyone to be at his mercy, even if he would die first than betray his friends. he doesn't want that weight for sirius either, so privately he is a little relieved.

 

"but, remus," she says a little louder, clearer, the first flash of doubt in her eyes, putting aside his perhaps ridiculous speech, with a cold hard doubt, "I don't like it. you know? I don't want to let him do this. I guess you've figured out who we would choose?"

 

"well, I assumed peter," he says reasonably, thinking about it for a moment. there is no-one else, past sirius and himself. lily looks carefully at him. remus feels like she is asking him something very important, so he wants to assure her, that he doesn't feel left out or overlooked, he gets it. he is not sure what she wants him to assure her of, because he is so tired, so he continues, "well, it's peter. he's someone who truly doesn't seem to change." lily had never really liked him, but then he came before her. he had kept remus, too, and so remus still owes him a part of everything he is. he is for once enormously thankful in this moment for that clear, wolf-like system of truth that had guided him through every delusive wilderness of reality to this healing day with lily.

 

"do you think that?" she asks again, the hardness a little bleak now. remus has to admit that he hasn't really spoken to him properly since - well, perhaps since school. he can barely imagine him. but he's out there, living his little tough life his own way, probably. under lily's eyes, she makes him feel bad, like he really should speak to him more. everyone changes, a little, every day, walking towards the end. when they're done with all this - whatever "this" is, whatever he means by that - they should have a little party again, he thinks wildly. and they'll invite peter. she seems to drop the subject, and they sit and share the last of the tea. the baby only wakes once. the morning passes in the enormity of the future, far, far away.

 

"I'm going to talk to sirius about a lot of things," he says, with real kindness of warmth and feeling for this tiny domestic situation. he looks at her, a vision of life and promise, a mother, and feels the tears atop his face again. he lets them pool there. when he and sirius can talk to her and james about them, their life, calmly, gladly, as he always wished - truly. his words run free. "I-I can't ever have a child with him like you two can, we can't be married, but it would be precious, and crucial, to receive your kind of blessing, like everything would be complete. I can't marry him, but we can do things like you. we could move in together, go into hiding as well, go on holiday, see many things, do all sorts of things, be together, honestly and - forever. there's no-one else. there could never be anyone else in this world. I feel like I know him, through his very heart and blood. now more than ever, I want to help him." his face is a little flushed, but he cannot look away from her, who holds him in this one moment, and probably all along so far. shyly, he concludes, "and to be 'together', in front of you - you're almost like now, in a way, in a weird, tiny measure, like parents to us, too - us who still haven't quite grown up, are still hiding things and not sure of anything, even if we're really here, like you're in a different world to us.... the complete world."

 

"but I would still have some regrets if I died now, remus," lily says calmly and patiently, with eternal eyes. remus doesn't quite recognise the colour of that feeling. perhaps, one day, he will.

 

*

 

it was the last day of lucidity, really. remus went back to his flat, feeling thoroughly drained and renewed, and fell straight into strange, taunting, tantalous dreams that were not quite nightmares, but whispers. he woke in bizarre, startling snatches, where he could forget something he had remembered, or the other way around, perhaps only of dreams, of a small child without scars on its face, calling out something crucial to him, until it realised he could not hear it, and then it fell silent and just watched him as though in expressionless farewell. in the times he was awake for a few moments, he did the rare action of writing down a lot of things that he knew had recently happened - what was _"true"_ \- as had been recommended by his clinic back when he had the ability to go there, simply as a way of measuring out the actual reality and space of time. it normally frightened him - because he could recall so little, as lived memories. today, he felt like a new world would begin. however, it would not begin until he had put this into order for the last time. it was absolutely necessary. he looked at old photographs, one precious, simple one he took recently of just sirius' neck upwards, kind of meaningless, but with this mysterious expression about the future remus can't see. he put it next to the kettle. he imagined many different things. he saw many different futures. the potion he took when he returned from lily's, the last one which would keep him from changing this month, this very night, finally seized him and made him fall straight into the final sleep, his nerves and bones laughing and straining for something out of sight beyond the stars, the last rest before the future, this final, true, transformation.

 

_Later burnt, later salvaged._

 

 

 

****

 

IV.

 

* * * *

 

he wakes up in the end, in the early evening of the next day. he knows james and lily are gone - they are in hiding, now. he does not know where they are. literally can't, but it's ok. they're out there somewhere - in this same world, with beating hearts. it's a full moon tonight. he doesn't look out at the hazy, sunset sky, but he feels its faded disc as if it were directly above his own flat. he remains calm. the fact is that, the potion still in its experimental form, the first of its kind they say, doesn't fully suppress the entire change on the particular, fated day. it's a strange, dangerous situation to be in and not really recommended for already fragile minds - he sort of feels like his inhibitions are relaxed, like he is not exactly sure of what is happening and what is not, and more than ever, he sees and feel things that aren't quite there.... so to speak. of course, the moon is always there. so, he doesn't transform, but there is a dark restlessness in the air telling him of other worlds, _there are still others that you don't know about. Futures you cannot yet know, but which know you, and your every hair_. unlike every other time so far, when he uses his every ounce of energy to resist this action he is about to do, he realises that he decided today would be the beginning of everything, and he looks up. the face of the Moon is a terrible purity. remus feels a deep eternity in it. honestly, it's a little like the feeling he has when he imagines death. he had not wanted to look directly at it anymore, as things stand, because he feared turning truly uncontrollable. that it would be the end. but he feels fine.

 

* *

 

he finds sirius at home, beckoned to him, he who is waiting. his behaviour seems strange. remus knows instantly, without it being at all reasonable, that sirius knows today is special, too. it doesn't quite make sense. remus embraces him with a terrible calmness, as if he finally understands everything, beneath those wild wide eyes and knitted dark brows. remus feels his own calm, but under it there is a tiny nervous wicked restlessness that isn't quite his, like it's someone else's. he wonders if it is sirius' feelings, as he often feels it on this day - their canine brotherhood, a sort of knowledge, a sort of awareness, like everything in the world is between them as dust on the air. steadily he holds him, and they may share a little conversation of what has happened in the past few days, a distraction, a sacrifice. sirius happened across one of the blacks who told him something strange, but he doesn't mention what it is. it's ok, there was no trouble on his side- he made sure of that, and remus tells about a conversation he had with lily, where she told him about something important.... changing someone.... but he can't quite remember, and it is all so worthless compared to this moment. he will not remember that conversation.

 

sirius is the one who wants to talk of something, questions, but remus covers the words with his own measured breath. sirius' is very fast. they're toward his bed, with the light shining full in upon them together with force, and for a moment, remus feels frightened. sirius' brow uncreases from his hidden inner thoughts, and he seems to stop and put it aside to look upon what remus is. the moon seems to cry at him, in triumph, or horror, and remus feels a deep chilling premonition. he does not know what it is about. the feeling reaches him through the light. with exquisite tenderness, sirius draws the curtain shut over the message.

 

a little sobered, remus asks now, "was there something you were saying before?" and sirius, impatient, looks confused too, as if he can't quite remember. he seems to think about it again carefully. "don't worry. there's something I need to check tomorrow, but if I'm wrong, I'll know." his look is calm, plain and there's something under it that remus can't see. a strange sense of foreboding. he can sort of see, but he doesn't want to right now. _I'll destroy that foreboding tonight_. sirius also puts it neatly aside, with his birthright of careless elegance, and is now staring up at him with dark, full eyes. it's like everything in this world has led to this moment and no cares matter, no tomorrow, no end. the moon is gone for one second.

 

"you're the only one in the world," sirius says with clarity, seizing his wrist slowly, carefully, bringing his body to him like a catch. "I don't care if the whole world burns, if it's just you and me left." the thought makes remus' heart twist despite himself, and some part of him asks reproachfully, "you don't mean that, do you?" and another part, "I know", and he isn't sure which he says, maybe both. sirius laughs, the dark wine-sound he gets, like he doesn't really mean it, a wild, free sound, but with those eyes that say something even more important, that fix remus resolutely. he will never, ever be able to forget this conversation.

 

although lily had last said to him, and although he had listened, of some important moral that he wanted to understand, what he feels tonight with everlasting clarity, dark and comfortable knowledge, a little brutal but clear, is that he would be satisfied if he died tonight. though he listened to her words, he's not quite there yet. but it's ok. there's a lot of time left. they taste eternity together. . . .

 

He sinks into the blackness of the future world.

 

 

* * * *

 

when remus wakes, he is alone in their bed together.

 

the blinds askew, the moon shines on him as though it was trying to wake him up. he does not know why they are open like that. the world is very quiet. he could lie as he is, forever, until sirius comes back. he lies there in his heavy, satisfied body only for a little time, feeling first at ease, but with whispers in the background, of dark things, of him, a Dark Creature.... for some reason, his restless blood stirs him to rise. he looks around, and gets to his feet.

 

the flat is very empty. the air is very still. he cannot escape the thing in the sky, outside, waiting for him urgently, and standing watch over him like a phantasmic angel, when sirius was the one who was meant to be here - the one he chose, tonight. why is he not here? the moon laughs. his breath strangles in his throat and he forces it through quietly, calmly, even as he sinks slowly to the floor, feeling blood all around his veins and body. in the past, he would probably be just about to finish and change back, perhaps, the time when he most felt like killing something. at the same time, there would always be a vicious, impotent anger up at that awful sky that had just _watched_ him, voyeuristic, all night. even inside, it never leaves. in the present time, he is breathing very fast and feels very sick.

 

there is a tap at the window, a strange, cryptic sound which remus' feeble mind didn't expect, but the wolf did expect. it is an owl. he thought maybe it might be sirius, locked out accidentally after going to chase starlight on his wretched motorbike. it would be just like him. when he looks at the small creature, his blood shifts and he wants to destroy the creature, or himself. the bird is frightened off, and leaves its message behind.

 

he doesn't destroy the message yet. the words read very strangely to him. he squints over them, as if he cannot quite grasp their import - it's often so, when he's taken the potion. a wolf can't read, after all. but for some reason regardless, he throws up, viciously into the kitchen sink. he cannot move from the floor for some time after, even though he also cannot quite knit together anything that has caused this. he receives a phone call, too, set up in sirius' utility room back when he first began staying for long periods of time, so that he could uncomfortably call his mother, the last sunday of every month. the caller says, "I couldn't tell if you got the owl, so I" and "heard that you were usually here, so I" and "betrayed" and "killed" and "sirius did it" and some other words too. he doesn't know who it is, because he hears them all in his own voice. actually, he read the letter in his own handwriting, too. he doesn't respond, so the voice has to say "I'm sorry. when I hear more I'll..." and he is left in quiet. in the background it sounds like he heard something incongruous like a cheer, or excited voices, which echo for a long time in his head. he doesn't think _this is a mistake_ or _I can't believe it_ because he felt something coming, ever since he was a child, ever since that day. perhaps even he himself did this. his eyes settle absurdly on an old photograph frame above the stove- him, peter, james, lily, and sirius. with it the echoing sound morphs into the warped laughter of children. there's the picture from earlier, too. a long time passes. he burns the picture. later, he burns them all.

 

he remembers last night. he remembers everything.

 

he blacks out before he can accomplish what he really wants, so he does not know if he quite manages it. the nightmare of a horrendous landscape of this place, the world, the F u t u r e, accepts him.

 

he laughs the kind of berserker laugh someone else used to, someone who had led him to this moment all along, _I love you no matter what happens_ and _if it's just you and me left_ and he doesn't hate him for one brief moment, only thinks, _kill me too, sirius_. of this, I beg. he has nothing left, though, to give in exchange. it has already been taken from him.

 

the day ends just like the world. before it does, the same Moon as yesterday, which watched everything, as ever, pierces him like the eye of a wolf. he is held one last time by it, his oldest and only companion, his very self, and it fixes him with its purity like horror, like a knife blade. something in it is asking him to look for the truth. you foolish moon. the truth is destruction. I wanted to go somewhere else.

 

he realises, there was never anything but him and the moon, this whole entire time. this is it. there is no escape. this is all there is. he realises, >>he was the one who killed his past self.<< later that day, someone looks up at the same moon from a cell on a lonely island. remus feels that reflected gaze, every month, for 12 years, forever.

 

he sinks into the blackness of the real world.

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

_The moon draws the quilt of time across his small, cursed, empty body, takes the knife from his hand, and whispers something into his ear._

 

_I will watch over you. And one day, you will know the Truth._

 

*


End file.
